Pop-up Box Card with Erica

Erica on the blog today with a bit of an experiment: a box pop-up card! I had never made one before this one so it’s full or trial and errors but you know, I’m all about keeping it real crafting wise. Warts and all. And there are a few on this one but more about that as we get to them. It did also take me several days to get this one done and I actually finished another one in between the start to finish of this one! I’m not one of these ‘one project at a time’ kind of people, I have several on the go at all times… I can’t help it.

As you all probably know by now, I’m obsessed with the Together We Bloom stamp set. I can’t stop using it for every project I’m doing for the blog… in my defence, I’m hoping this shows how versatile it is and how many possibilities there are with this set. Everyone ok with that? Yep? Ok, let’s get to the card then.

First a small confession, I’m TERRIBLE at watching tutorials before trying something new. I tend to be so impatient that I simply dive in the deep end and hope my swimming skills will save me. It has backfired more than one time but so far I have not learnt my lesson. Like at all. This was no different. I was super excited about getting this scalloped box pop-up die from Lawn Fawn and just started cutting pieces of card stock before having a single clue about what I was even going to do with them. Ack… If you are shaking your head at me right now, I do not blame you at all.

Right, so the idea that formed was that it was going to be a green box with hot pink flowers inside it. I have a big hoard of card stock and picked out a nice leafy green one for the actual box. Rolling this through the Big Shot twice, a quick glue job and done. So far so good. This is the simplest bit though so no wonder I was feeling ok about it at this stage!

I thought I’d use some kind of green-ish patterned paper for the die cut box panels on the outside of the box but I didn’t have any that I liked enough. Thinking quick on my feet, I decided to make my own using the Brush Strokes stamp set and green inks. I stamped it in a grid like pattern to create a loose gingham look. When I had a big enough piece to cut out all the eight boxes I put it through my Big Shot and glued them down on the box.

After stamping up lots of flowers and leaves, I coloured them with my Copics before it was time to fussy cut. And fussy cut some more… aaaaaand some more. I wanted a big bunch of flowers in the box and ended up using seven blooms of different sizes. Here I made my first mistake: I made three smaller bunches by gluing the flowers together without really knowing where I needed them to go. Memo to self for next time: DO NOT DO THIS!! Wait until everything is ready to be put together and don’t jump the gun! I ended up having to pull some of them apart and even with all the re-arranging and taking apart, I still managed to cover up one of the blooms in the middle layer and you can see one of the bits I had to use to elevate another flower.

Mistake number two happened here: I decided to stamp the sentiment ‘Together We Bloom’ from the stamp set on the biggest flower in black and then heat emboss clear embossing powder over it. I should have waited with deciding on a sentiment before I knew what the card was going to be for. As it is, I’ve sent it to my Mother-In-Law for Mother’s Day along with a present I made for her. I’ve sent another card with it to explain that this one is for decoration. It’s a good thing she already knows I’m quite sentimental and overly gushing at times..

On the inside flaps of the box I decided to cut up more panels instead of leaving them bare. These I stamped with flowers and leaves too, because why make it easy for myself?? They got coloured in with the same Copics as the flowers inside the box. On the back panel I stamped the big flower from Thank You So Much set. After colouring that one I also decided to fill in the white spaces with a very light green Copic, I’m pretty sure I used G11 for it but because I forgot to write down my colours I can’t be sure. Here I made mistake number three: I should have stamped the front flower panel with the flower coming out of the bunch instead of as I did.. I think that would have made for a more ‘organic’ look but by the time I thought of this, I couldn’t pull that bit off without risking destroying the whole box.

Here you can also see how messy it looks from the back. For the next time I really need to come up with a better solution to this as it’s nice if it looks good from, if not all but most angles, not just the front one. I’m thinking that masking the flowers together into bunches at the stamping stage might be the way to go? Then maybe I can plan the layout a bit better and avoid the green card stock piece showing?

Ok, so it’s not terrible but I’m sure I can do a better job of it next time. IF I remember all my ‘memos to self’ that is! Which isn’t something you should bank on…

Well, that’s it from me for this time and this is my last post for March so see you all in April!